Sure, we're all familiar with the term "power walking" — being overtaken on the sidewalk by your neighborhood speed demon is no fun, for anyone!

Well this isn't that. You've entered an Olympic domain, and we're here to teach you about a racing discipline that's both challenging and historic, having first appeared on the Games program more than a century ago.

Race walking is an athletics discipline that falls somewhere between walking and running. In race walking, one foot must always be in contact with the ground. Breaking this rule is called "lifting."

Rules also state that an athlete’s advancing leg must remain straight from the point of contact with the ground until his or her body passes over it.

At the Olympics, judges lined throughout the course observe the race using just their eyes and caution competitors if it appears they are breaking the rules.

Two types of rule violations exist:

• Loss of contact. Athletes must have one foot in contact with the ground at all times. Failure to keep a foot on the ground is considered “lifting.”
• Bent knee. Advancing leg must not bend and should straighten as the body passes over it.

Athletes competing in the 20km race walk at the 2024 Paris Games will need to serve a two-minute time penalty after three rule violations, known as red cards. In the new mixed relay event, three red cards equate to a three-minute penalty, with one additional minute added on for each subsequent red card up until a seventh, at which point the team is disqualified. The same judge may only issue one red card per athlete.

The current Olympic program includes three events.

• Men's 20km Walk
• Women's 20km Walk
• Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay

The mixed relay makes its Olympic debut in Paris, replacing the men's-only 50km walk.

All events are finals. There are no preliminary rounds. The first athlete to cross the finish line wins gold.

The men's and women's 20km walks are 12.427 miles each.

The marathon race walk mixed relay is 26.2 miles, or just over 42 kilometers.

Entering Paris, these were the records for the individual 20km races:

Men's 20km Walk

• World record: 1:16:36, Japan's Yusuke Suzuki, March 2015
• Olympic record: 1:18:46, China's Chen Ding, 2012 London Games
• U.S. record: 1:22:02, Tim Seaman, May 2004

Women's 20km Walk

• World record: 1:23:49, China's Yang Jiayu, March 2021
• Olympic record: 1:25:16, China's Qieyang Shijie, 2012 London Games
• U.S. record: 1:30:49, Maria Michta-Coffey, May 2014

Twenty-five teams each consisting of one male and one female will compete in a marathon with four legs of approximately equal distance, just over 10 kilometers each.

Each team alternates the legs in the following order: male, female, male, female.

No Americans qualified for any of the three race walk events.

It's a first for Team USA — until Paris, the U.S. had sent at least one walker to every Olympics in which race walking was on the program, excluding the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games.

At least one American qualified in every other track and field event.

Race walking was first introduced at the 1908 London Olympics, and has been a part of every edition since, excluding the 1928 Games in Amsterdam.

Event-by-event history

The men's 20km race walk was first held at the 1956 Melbourne Games and has been a part of every program since.

The U.S. has never won a medal. Its best finish was at the 1968 Mexico City Games, when Rudolph Haluza finished fourth.

Women first competed in race walk at the 1992 Barcelona Games in the 10km, and began competing at 20km at the 2000 Sydney Games. The best American finish was Michelle Rohl, 14th at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

The mixed relay, making its debut in Paris, replaces the men's-only 50km race walk, which was contested at every Games from 1932 to 2020, excluding 1976 in Montreal.

NBC Olympics Research contributed to this report